tendon

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A band of tough, inelastic fibrous tissue that connects a muscle with its bony attachment.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A band or layer of dense fibrous tissue at the end of a muscle for attachment to a hard part, or interposed between two muscular bellies, usually where the direction of the muscle is changed; a sinew: said especially of such structures when rounded or cord-like, very broad flat tendons being commonly called fasciæ and aponeuroses. Tendons are directly continuous, at one end, with the periosteum, or fibrous investment of bones, and at the other with the fascial tissue which invests and interpenetrates the bundles of muscular tissue. The tissue or substance of tendons is quite like that of ligament, fascia, etc., being dense white fibrous or ordinary connective tissue, usually entirely inelastic and inextensible, though there are some exceptions to this rule. They are attached to bones by perfect continuity of their tissue with the periosteum, and are not notably different from the ligaments of joints. They are the strongest substances of the body, often sustaining strains under which muscle is ruptured and bone fractured. Some tendons are prone to ossify, as those of the leg of the turkey, and all sesamoid bones are ossifications in tendon, as the patella of the knee. See cut under sympelmous.

Wiktionary

1. n. anatomy A tough band of inelastic fibrous tissue that connects a muscle with its bony attachment.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Anat.) A tough insensible cord, bundle, or band of fibrous connective tissue uniting a muscle with some other part; a sinew.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a cord or band of inelastic tissue connecting a muscle with its bony attachment